Digitalización y control del trabajo en almacenes logísticos. Un estudio sobre el centro de distribución de MercadoLibre en Argentina

Abstract

Abstract

This article analyzes the case of the MercadoLibre distribution center in the Province of Buenos Aires as a paradigmatic example of the reorganization of labor in contemporary capitalism, in which digitization emerges as a central dimension, as it organizes different levels of control over the workforce and is integrated into a corporate strategy that combines symbolic valorization and material incentives to shape an organizational ethos in line with the firm’s needs. The study is based on qualitative fieldwork conducted between 2023 and 2024, which included semistructured interviews with warehouse workers and recruiters in Argentina, as well as an analysis of secondary sources and the company’s own documents that reflect its corporate discourse. The analysis explores how performance is monitored and how digital tools are implemented. The incorporation of scanning technologies has standardized work, making it monotonous and repetitive. The need to shape workers’ behavior and morale reveals the extent to which the labor process has become abstract and devalorized, demanding fewer and fewer specific skills and more compliance. In this regard, the case of MercadoLibre allows us to observe how the new ethos of digital capitalism is put at the service of a scientific management of labor that, far from emancipating, reproduces renewed forms of control and labor discipline.